


My Love is Carved into your Skin

by Siana



Series: Don't Call it Fate [1]
Category: Yuuri!!! on Ice - Fandom
Genre: Corpses are used as Love Letters, Flower Language, Liberties taken with the meaning of Lilies, Like they are in Germany, M/M, Mafia AU, Not sure if they are used as Funeral Flowers anywhere else, Or so I've heard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 06:22:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9110398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siana/pseuds/Siana
Summary: The obligatory mafia AU.Yuuri is a hit man for the yakuza and Viktor is the heir to a Russian mob family. They become pen pals and grow closer over the mutual exchange of defiled corpses.Part of a series I may or may not continue.





	

Yuuri Katsuki stands on the jagged edge of a cliff and stares down towards the raging shore, where the spray foam of the incoming tide hides the bloody deed he just committed.

The body is preserved in a sealed bag, the gruesome details of the man’s execution conserved for the recipient’s eye.

Yuuri knows the tides of his homelands, knows the body will be carried off westwards towards Russian shore and there it will be found. It may take a few weeks, but the message will reach its intended target one way or another.

It wouldn’t stop them of course, but at least it would warn the Russian mob that they could not hope to intrude on Japanese soil without repercussions.

He had been asked to make an example. And an example he had made. The message however, was all his own.

The chill wind bites into Yuuri’s cheeks, but he barely feels it as he turns to walk to the car. It has been a long night, the morning rays of sunrise just barely piercing the cloud cover. He feels the strain of the long hours, but he also feels the first tendrils of hope. He does not know for what, only that with this deed he has opened up the way for something new in his future.

He opens the car door and sinks into the expensive leather of the seat. He catches the cool glare of his eyes in the rearview mirror, the faint lines of a cruel smirk that sticks like glue to his face when he is playing this role. It has been a long night indeed. Yuuri Katsuki picks up his glasses, sees the cruelty drip from his features like honey from a spoon until he’s staring at the familiar features of his face unblemished by the bloods his hands remember. It’s ordinary, black hair, brown eyes. It’s part lie and part truth and he no longer knows where which part belongs.

It is time to go home.

~*~

“We found him at the coast off Lazarev. He’s been dead for…”

Viktor Nikiforov waves off the words of his underling. Another is in the process of pulling off the plastic tarp they’d used to cover the body.

Viktor can’t help but smirk. He knows the handiwork, the brutal net of lacerations that criss-cross the man’s chest, none deeper than a centimeter. He knows, before the tarp is even lifted off completely what he will find on the man’s left thigh, on the inside, almost intimately close to the groin – the carved image of a snake with two heads. He knows, would he check the man’s mouth cavity, he would find all teeth missing, in their place a crystallized white lily - a funeral flower. Oh, he knows this handiwork by heart; he’d invented it after all.

This is a message, a message specifically for him. And he has a good guess as to who has sent it. He waves his hand and his men spring to work, dousing the body and surrounding shed with gasoline and it is the match that is used to light his cigarette to set the inferno ablaze.

Viktor pulls his black trench coat tighter against the chill winter wind. He blows smoke out between his lips, staring eastwards. Japan is too far away to see from here, but he imagines the shadow on the horizon anyway.

His lips curl around the cigarette into a smirk. The wind tousles the silver strands of his hair, whipping them against the side of his face. The firm metal of the two revolvers in his shoulder holsters are a reassuring weight and reminder that he will always be in charge.

Viktor snips the cigarette into a dirty drift of snow. He’d pulled the triad’s teeth too thoroughly. They hadn’t put up a good fight in a long time and wouldn’t recover any time soon. The dregs pushing in from the West – Poles, Czech and any other piss-country that thought it could intrude on Russia’s turf – were thorns he’d pulled and crushed years ago. There hadn’t been anyone left on the chessboard to truly test his skills in years. This is the first serious challenge he has gotten in a while. And such an exquisite response it is. All Viktor had done was sent out feelers, one man to test the waters – and markets – of Japan- a territory he had not yet set his foot upon.

Viktor drags a gloved thumb over his lower lip. He feels a tingle of excitement, a pale shadow of a sensation he’d last felt two years ago. Maybe, just maybe this mysterious hit man from Japan could entertain him.

But first, he would have to figure out a reply.

“Get that rat we have sitting in Macau. He’s been living off our cheese for far too long. It’s time to send the little rat home.”

Viktor flicks his wrist, catching the knife in his hands. He runs his thumbs over the sharp edge. Maybe, maybe this would shed some light into the dullness of his life.

“And find out who’s doing the yakuza’s dirty work these days.”

~*~

Yuuri Katsuki has not very many rules. “Don’t take risks, don’t get emotional on a job. And don’t disturb him on his skating rink.”

Yuuri catches the dark-clad figure entering the empty hall just as he is in the middle of a routine. He recognizes him as one of the family’s underlings, recognizes the hesitant shuffle in his step as he comes down the stairs between the seats.

Yuuri has no weapons on him, but the mask slips on as easily as a glove. The man comes to a halt meters away from the edge of the rink.

“My deepest apologies, Katsuki-sama…”

Yuuri slides closer to the edge of the rink and the man swallows convulsively.

Yuuri isn’t angry, not really. He could be grateful simply for the freedom he is granted in so many things as the backup son. As the second son he has been raised away from the main family, integrated into society, left alone and to be used in case of emergency. But he had been trained all the same, to fight not to rule and he hadn’t been good, he had been the best. So his father – a man he had met less than five times in his life, a man who hadn’t even given him his name – had offered him a position.

And Yuuri had accepted. But this shred of normalcy, this little glimpse of a life that could have been, he had kept, fought for and eventually won for a price that had been steep. But he had won it.

He isn’t angry, not really but he thinks of murder all the same. Thinks how easy it would be to jump off the ice, to slide hid blades over the man’s throat. It would look pretty, the spray of blood painting rubies on the ice. It is just as well that he has to wear his business face now anyway.

“What is it?” He does not bother with politeness. This is the face of the family, a face he wears all too well. It does not require heart, only coldness.

“Kobayashi has been found dead.”

Yuuri says nothing. He does not know Kobayashi. He is more ornament than member, the knife kept in the dark and only brought to light when something needs carving. The men fear him but he does not know them.

“It is something you should see.”

~*~

Kobayashi is a poor bastard that much is obvious at first sight. Yuuri knows a thing or ten about killing and Kobayashi has been killed expertly. He sends the men outside, with a few words. Technically, he has no rank within the hierarchy but his reputation precludes any form of disobedience. He’d doled out enough of the family’s justice to be feared.

Yuuri puts on a pair of rubber gloves and pulls away the sheet that covers most of Kobayashi. It is evident immediately why Yuuri has been called to examine the body. Kobayashi had been stationed in Macau in an effort to find a way into the Russian’s casino stronghold and he had absolutely nothing to do with Yuuri. But that had not bothered his killer.

Yuuri recognizes the style. He has spent hours studying it, admiring its bold audacity. He knows the time it takes for the victim to die, knows the slippery feel of blood coating his blade while he cuts. And he knows everything there is to know about the man who created it. And there is very little known about this man. His name alone is a secret paid for in lives. The world only knows him as the Snake.

The double-headed snake on the man’s inner thigh is familiar; its sight sends a slight shiver down Yuuri’s spine. But this time there is something different. The snake holds the stem of a rose in one of its mouths.

And on the man’s other thigh is the carved likeness of a boar, holding a lily in its mouth.

Another shiver trickles down Yuuri’s spine. The boar, his nickname. Crude, just like the work he does. And now carved intricately into the meat of a man’s leg, next to the snake of the man he’s admired since his youth. Yuuri’s hands are shaking ever so slightly as he reaches for the dead man’s mouth. Inside, a white lily, a single drop of blood on one of its petals. The crystal glint of its casing distorts its shape into that of a heart.

Yuuri feels his heartbeat like a painful thud against his ribs. Like a bird that has been trapped too long and wants freedom.

~*~

“This feud of yours… it can’t affect business, Vitya,” Yakov says and puffs smoke from his cigar.

He taps a bejeweled finger on the smooth, wooden surface of his desk. Both desk and cigar are obscenely expensive, and yet they both pale in comparison to the clothes on Viktor’s body. His suit alone could feed a small family for months.

Presently, he smiles, too wide and too bright, but the thought of ‘his little feud’ warms his blood like little else does. He hadn’t smoked a cigarette in weeks, the urge quelled by newfound excitement.

It had been a guess, well researched but still a guess that it had been the Boar who carved up his man. So he had sent his response, a little gift, exquisitely wrapped and packaged.

They had just gotten the answer.

“Vitya…” Yakov says and shakes his head, but he is fond, too fond and he has always given Viktor too much leeway, too much freedom, and Viktor knows this, knows the privilege he has had his entire life. But he also knows that he is good, that he has expanded Yakov’s empire in every direction, has taken control over the entirety of Russia’s underworld and more. And he knows that Yakov knows this too.

“Do not worry. This is our road into Japan’s markets.” And it might be, if he handles it right. But the truth is he doesn’t really care about their expansion into Japan. Hasn’t cared for a long time. He’s felt trapped in this cage of his own making for a long time now.

He’s had only one ray of light and that had been a dream more than reality. One night with a man who’d shaken his whole world so thoroughly that even today Viktor still feels the world tremble under his feet.

“I trust you, Vitya,” Yakov says and blows out smoke. “Just see that this feud does not spill into business.”

The thought of business does not move Viktor as much as it should be. Business has been dull and without challenge. But he smiles and nods and assures Yakov that everything will go as planned. It is enough.

Viktor’s heart only starts beating again when he sees the body splayed out on a table. An obscene puppet with its strings cut.

The pattern is the same. Criss-crossed cuts on the chest, a mark on the inside of the man’s left thigh. It's a boar and this much Viktor had guessed when he’d heard there was a response. But he’d have thought the message to be challenging, the boar swallowing the snake as he would have done but didn’t. But what it is instead has his blood pump faster, the thrill of covert intimacy, a message just for him. The snake is wrapped around the boar, like an attack in reverse, except the boar’s neck is free; its snout just shy of the nose of one of the snake’s.

It’s daring and intimate and Viktor feels arousal stir his blood.

He slips a finger into the man’s mouth and lifts his lips to reveal a flower, one he doesn’t know, a little bit like a rose, except larger with an abundance of faintish yellow petals. It means something, he’s sure of that. Viktor cups the flower and wishes he could understand what it was.

He takes his phone, thumb hovering over the call button. He has plenty of favors to call in. It would take only a few of them to get him to Japan. Some more to find the Boar. He wants to, damn him he wants to. But he can’t forget _Yuuri_ , the man who stole his heart and who only left his name and memories. He stares at the body on display. It feels like a betrayal when there is nothing to betray. Yuuri is only a stranger, a man he’d spent one night with. A man who’d left him without a word of goodbye.

Viktor swipes his finger and then presses call.

“Yes,” he says, “I want an In on your business in Okinawa.”

Later, he searches for the flower, a yellow Camelia. It means little in the flower language of his homeland, but when he looks up _hanakotoba_ , he feels his fingers shake with excitement at a feeling he understands all too well.

_Longing._

It is not a betrayal, if Yuuri betrayed him first.

~*~

This time Yuuri finishes his routine before he acknowledges the man. He has his rules and he won’t bend them any more than he has to. The dead, after all, can wait a bit longer for the living.

But when he changes, and the adrenaline of the ice leaves him, he suddenly feels he can’t wait. He remembers the daring idea he’d had, his admiration for the man called the Snake guiding his hand more than reason. It is an example but also an invitation. His father doesn’t care as long as he is discreet, the vices of his brother a far more pressing secret.

He feels like skating on thin ice, a careful balancing act, of spreading weight as far as possible as he approaches the warehouse where the body is stored and will be burned. He is nervous; a flutter in his chest, and it reminds him of the feeling he gets on the ice, of the intense immediacy of being alive.

It’s a stranger this time, Japanese but none of theirs. If it were, Yuuri’s father would not tolerate it. The man lies bare, only covered in the blood he has spilled. The carving, a two-headed snake wrapped around a flower on his thigh, the same flower he finds crystallized in the man’s mouth.

He knows the flower, but he doesn’t know its meaning. He looks it up, but he finds nothing in the flower language of his homeland.

There is a letter carved into the man’s cheeks, a letter in Cyrillic. He puzzles until he thinks to look up flower meanings in Russia.

 _Jonquil -_ _Violent Sympathy and Desire, Love me, Affection returned_

It feels like a dream and Yuuri thinks he’s falling. It’s the violence of his heartbeat that shocks him back into reality. He’s excited like he’s only ever on the ice, not even during a hit. His hands are shaking.

When his phone rings to inform him of a problem that needs disposal, Yuuri already knows what he is going to carve next.

~*~

Yuuri is about to fold the flower into the dead man’s mouth when his phone rings.

“There is another,” the voice at the other end says.

 _Too soon,_ Yuuri thinks. His heart is beating too fast, but his hands are steady this time.

He takes the crystallized flower with him when he leaves for Okinawa.

~*~

Viktor has killed more men than he can count, has been groomed to be the successor for Russia’s number one mafia family. He’s sent triads back pissing their pants and Italian mobster’s with their tail between their legs. He’s done so much with a cold heart. But now he is nervous like he’s never been.

The hotel room is expensive, discreet, but no luxury can stem the nervous fluttering of his heart. The room brings up memories, of a night he will never forget. Of Yuuri, whom he met in a bar once in Hong Kong, of the daring show he had performed impromptu, drunk on alcohol and the night, of the way he had looked at Viktor like he was the only person in the world. Of the way they had danced together later and then later still a more intimate dance between the silky sheets in an expensive hotel room.

Viktor reaches for the bottle of chilled champagne but aborts the motion. Yuuri had been a dream. Gone come morning with not a trace to be found of his whereabouts or identity.

This is not a night to think of Yuuri. He thinks instead of the message he has sent last. It makes the nervous flutter in his chest grow stronger, but it also fills him with a delicious sense of anticipation.

He reaches for his cigarettes instead; the urge to smoke hasn’t been this strong since he’d found the first body. He flicks on the lighter and then hesitates. He lets the flame die. He does not want to stale the room with cigarette smoke.

It was bold, so very bold.

The kiss, only teased in the Boar’s second message now fulfilled. Snake wrapped around boar so intimately that they could only be separated by the cut of a knife. And the flower had cradled a slip of paper, an address and a room number. The flower – _hanakotoba_ – this time, the kanji character for flower carved into the cheek, a cactus blossom. It’s clumsy, he knows it, but he balks to write love when all he understands is that he _wants_.

Yakov would have his head if he knew. But Yakov only knows he’s in Okinawa to broker a deal with Guang-Hong Ji, a Chinese expat who smuggles drugs for the yakuza sometimes. But he doesn’t care for Ji or drugs or the business he will one day inherit.

He’s given the Boar a ticket to his life essentially. He could have misunderstood everything until this point. This could be a trap he set up himself.

Viktor doesn’t care; he has never felt this alive in years.

He does not admit to himself that the thing he is most afraid of is that the Boar will not come at all.

There is a knock on the door.

If he’d had something in his hand he would have dropped it right then.

His hearts is beating wildly, but his hands are steady on the handle of his gun. He points it down, safety on. A precaution he hopes he does not need.

He opens the door.

And Viktor Nikiforov’s world comes to a stuttering halt when he sees the man that once stole his heart.

“Snake,” the man – _Yuuri_ – says in broken Russian.

The gun falls from Viktor’s numb fingers. He whispers Yuuri's name or he thinks he does. He's not sure he can even control his body anymore. His gaze slides and catches on the crystalline red rose in Yuuri’s hands. He knows the flower's meaning. It's the same in every language.

It shatters on the ground a moment later.


End file.
